We received our initial training on the NIBRS version of Smartcop in December 2020, and went live with it late that month. This was an enormous project with significant ramifications for our road personnel: it entailed both a forklift upgrade to the user’s experience with the reporting software itself, and adoption of NIBRS coding, which was a completely foreign concept to them. The initial versions of Incident and Charge Reports that were deployed were definitely a work in progress. However, when I later found out the time constraints for deployment under which Smartcop was working, I was amazed that the product they deployed at that time was as good as it was.
Although it’s difficult to separate the Smartcop experience from the NIBRS experience, I will say that our users appear to understand Smartcop’s implementation of the rule processes pretty intuitively: the bulk of my day-to-day work with the users is explaining how the NIBRS rules work, rather than how the Smartcop software works. They grasp the software quickly, and after a few repetitions are old pros.
Smartcop deployed another major upgrade in 2022. It was head and shoulders over the initial deployment: it was obvious that Smartcop had both listened to the suggestions and requests from their customers and worked very hard to make the interface as user-friendly as possible. I even had one road lieutenant, someone not known to be incredibly techie, comment to me about how greatly improved the current software version is over the initial deployment.
In my current role I deal with a variety of programs and databases, and a variety of vendors. I can say without reservation that Smartcop has been more responsive to our many questions, requests and comments than many of our other vendors. The staff there has a genuine commitment to its customer base and a genuine sympathy and understanding of the unique nature of the work done by public safety.
Jennifer Altenburger, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office
